Like every anti-establishment movement before it, the al-Qaeda has become cool and recruiters know that and take care to cultivate this image. In our work, we found one terrorist recruiter who urged young male Muslims to join global jihad for "the adventure - it's better than a holiday"

What's the message (presuming films have 'messages')? Is it that torture works? Seemingly, yes. That allowing detainees lawyers only gets in the way? Seemingly, yes. That you need to be able to round-up and question detainees in secret to get results? Again, seemingly yes.

Long before the first female Oscar-winning director was anywhere near shouting "action", it was clear Kathyn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty was going to be one of those films that set fire to the torch paper of ever-strong feeling about America's position on the global moral maze, and thus it has proved.

Zero Dark Thirty is a well-made and entertaining film but its entire plotline is built on a lie: that the torture of detainees by the CIA produced the intelligence which led the US to Osama Bin Laden's hideout in Pakistan. The movie effectively excuses and implicitly condones the torture that was done.

Each and every death is a tragedy, but these killings do not inform us about the underlying reasons for a conflict. Unfortunately, civilians are perhaps as likely to die at the hands of the well-intentioned as at the hands of the terrorist.

I have known for years, of course, that eleven of the men I currently represent have long been cleared for release. But the list of detainees cleared in 2009 by the Obama Administration after an "exhaustive" review was "protected" information that I was not permitted to disclose. How was the security of the United States threatened by this information?

As the world focuses on Afghanistan today; President Obama's historic visit and discussions about the future of the country, the scene that we witnessed unfolding inside the little neonatal unit at the provincial hospital this morning runs in freeze frame through my head.

Obama has an election to win and he needs to spin the Afghan war as victory and also to take credit for it... and the idea that Bin Laden's execution has paved the way for the defeat of al Qaeda is false for various reasons.